Pat Arnow's Clips

In a week in June when 15 GIs were killed in Iraq, the war pictures in the New York Times featured dazed Iraqis after a suicide bombing, a Marine patrolling, the twisted remains of a vehicle, wounded children, a civilian casualty in a morgue. No photographs featured American casualties--a typical absence in U.S. coverage of the war....

The images of war that appear today offer a marked contrast to the pictures of the dead and wounded from the Vietnam War, whose media coverage is credited with spurring protests through graphic images...

“. . . A retired truck driver, Carl Porter became inspired to handle snakes after he saw the practice at a church service. 'I seen the Lord move on them. I wanted the Lord to move on me, and He did--told me to handle the serpent.' . . . ”

“The problem wasn't that performer Ed Haggard took off his clothes during his one-person show, a section he called 'I'm too white,' and smeared his body with blue paint. It was what he said while he was doing it. He said that if he had more color, he might have a sense of rhythm, a love of nature. He painted his genitals and said if he had more color he might be more virile. . . . ”

“Anti-abortionist Randall Terry exhorted listeners to his syndicated radio show in August to go to their local Barnes & Noble bookstores and tear up books featuring photos of young nude girls. . . ”

“It's true that Sam Walton lived in rural Arkansas, drove an old pickup truck and used down-to-earth good sense to build the Wal-Mart discounting empire. This was his 'folksy facade.' . . .”

	In a week in June when 15 GIs were killed in Iraq, the war pictures in the New York Times featured dazed Iraqis after a suicide bombing, a Marine patrolling, the twisted remains of a vehicle, wounded children, a civilian casualty in a morgue. No photographs featured American casualties--a typical absence in U.S. coverage of the war.... The images of war that appear today offer a marked contrast to the pictures of the dead and wounded from the Vietnam War, whose media coverage is credited with spurring protests through graphic images...	Article,: “Where Have All the Bodies Gone?” from Extra! the publication of FAIR—Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. From 2005. Unfortunately, nothing has changed. In fact, it's worse. See below. Click here to read the story.
	A letter in February to the New York Times (2/3/07) from the commander of the Multinational Corps in Iraq revealed new censorship regulations prohibiting portrayals of U.S. casualties in the media. The tightened rules have been in effect since May 2006, but no media outlet with embedded photographers reported on or objected to the censorship of images.	Article,: “From Self-Censorship to Official Censorship,” from Extra! the publication of FAIR—Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, April 2007. Click here to read the story.
	If you happen to fall in to the New York Harbor, the Hudson, the East River, or Jamaica Bay, you need not fear bacterial infections or diseases from industrial pollution, according to a draft of a yearly report from the city's Department of Environmental Protection. Unless you fall in after a storm.	Article: “Clean Enough To Swim In Again?” from Gotham Gazette. Click here to read the article.
	The cashier breaks a yuca in half to show a customer the snowy white inside of the long, brown-skinned root. He nods, and she weighs the vegetable. The transaction is conducted in Spanish. Another customer, wearing a chef's jacket and checked pants, shows the new face of the neighborhood. The sous chef at the new Allen & Delancey fills his basket with striped eggplants and admires the cranberry beans.	Article: “Mysteries of the Essex Market Revealed,” about my favorite neighborhood place, from Grand Street News, a Lower East Side magazine. Click here to read the article.
	“What we were hoping to get across to Hollywood,' Katherine Oliver the Mayor's Film Commissioner says, 'is If you shoot your entire film here, we'll give you the Brooklyn Bridge.'”	Feature: “Shooting in New York,” from Gotham Gazette. Click here to read the article.
	“Women made up nearly 40 percent of all daily reporters in 2003 . . . But just 32 percent of the New York Times' reporters are women. And few of those women get prominent positions for their stories.”	Article,: “New York Times Bylines Sideline Women,” from Extra! the publication of FAIR—Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Click here to read the story.
	“When Doug Tyson rang the doorbell of American Legion Post 7 in Durham, N.C., last May, he was surprised that he didn't get past the foyer. A disabled Vietnam veteran, he didn't realize that this veterans' service club was segregated. . . .”	Article: “The Old South: For some black veterans, segregation lingers on,” from In These Times. Click here to read it.
	“. . . A retired truck driver, Carl Porter became inspired to handle snakes after he saw the practice at a church service. 'I seen the Lord move on them. I wanted the Lord to move on me, and He did--told me to handle the serpent.' . . . ”	Article: “Snake Handling,” from Southern Exposure. Click here for pdf file. Design by Mia Prior.
	Ullman: “As soon as people start collecting data, and they have data about the same people in two databases, somehow databases want to combine. It's something in the nature of the technology that as soon as people have the data to do what's called data mining, they will. It's almost irresistible. . . . ”	Interview: Ellen Ullman, author of Technophilia and Its Discontents, from Britannica.com. Click here to read the article.
	“The problem wasn't that performer Ed Haggard took off his clothes during his one-person show, a section he called 'I'm too white,' and smeared his body with blue paint. It was what he said while he was doing it. He said that if he had more color, he might have a sense of rhythm, a love of nature. He painted his genitals and said if he had more color he might be more virile. . . . ”	Article, analysis: “The Alternate ROOTS Dilemma: From Little Black Sambo to Son of White Man,” from Southern Exposure.” Click here to read the article, reprinted by the Community Arts Network.
	“Morgan’s vision of Appalachian people is a romantic one, the flip side of familiar imaginings of the violence and evil, moonshine and madness in the mountains. . . . ”	Review: Gap Creek by Robert Morgan, from Now & Then and the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer. Click here to read it all.
	“Anti-abortionist Randall Terry exhorted listeners to his syndicated radio show in August to go to their local Barnes & Noble bookstores and tear up books featuring photos of young nude girls. . . ”	Article: “Two Real Page-Turners” (Randall Terry vs. photographer Jock Sturges), from In These Times. Click here to read the story.
	“It's true that Sam Walton lived in rural Arkansas, drove an old pickup truck and used down-to-earth good sense to build the Wal-Mart discounting empire. This was his 'folksy facade.' . . .”	Review: In Sam We Trust by Bob Ortega, from the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer (and other papers). Click here to read it.
	“In your books, you use a lot of folklore. For instance, one of your characters puts an axe under the bed to cut the pain of childbirth. I wa wondering where you got this kind of thing.” “Well, I grew up in Grundy, Va., which is in Buchanan County in Southwest Virginia, and I was an only child, which means that I spent less time with other children and more time listening to old people. Although I was an only child, I had a real big family there. They were all real talkers.”	Interview: Novelist Lee Smith from the book, Conversations with Lee Smith, edited by Linda Tate, University Press of Mississippi. Smith writes about the present and past of Appalachia. Click here to read it.
	Links to some of the publications	The Chief-Leader Community Arts Network Extra! (publication of FAIR) Gotham Gazette Grand Street News In These Times Now & Then Britannica.com Southern Exposure
	More to come . . .